Hove-to is a State of Mind

By Mark Carson
ISBN 978-0-9928946-7-2
Price £5

Sorry. SOLD OUT. (sudden demand after publication of The Coup via e-mail)
for further copies contact Mark himself on: marksverbalburble@btinternet.com

Drawing on Irish roots, a career as an ocean engineer and time spent in Africa, Mark Carson’s poems are very much at ease with themselves as they evoke and celebrate particular experiences: a cross-cultural encounter camping in the bush, a night-time call-out on a research vessel at sea, a chance meeting between youth and beauty in the west of Ireland, all vividly described as if the reader were there too.

“The right word in the right place: Mark Carson has the confidence and the ability to make these most difficult of tasks look simple.” Neil Curry


In County Clare

And if you should stay in the town of Lahinch
after your dinner and a glass in the hotel bar
walk out in the long evening on the road to the west
and perch on the dry stone wall, your eye to the left
for the drama of the sinking sun, and to the east
where soon the figure of the girl will appear
and walk past you firmly as though stopping for no-one
only at the last minute she’ll spin
like a dancer, coming to a halt in a stylish chassé
with her back to the wall beside you.

Then you may learn her name, that she is walking
to Le Scanoor, which you had thought was called Liscannor,
and that her age is not to be revealed on a first meeting,
and that she loves to dance, and that there will be a marvellous
opportunity to dance with her, next week in Le Scanoor
if you were still to be around. But for all this to happen
you must be a slender boy of nineteen
with an open countenance and time on your hands.


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